Downing Street Says

Asked what the Prime Minister thought of the video purportedly showing a US soldier killing a wounded Iraqi soldier in Fallujah the PMOS said that the important thing was, as the US Lieutenant-General said this morning, that the matter was fully investigated and we would await the outcome of that thorough investigation. It was also however important to recognise what the Iraqi Ministry of Health had said after sending a team into Fallujah yesterday. It found that the hospital had ample medical supplies. It had not found citizens in dire need of food and water because most citizens had left the city. It had found that out of the 17,000 buildings only 200 had sustained major damage and it reiterated that the Iraqi Government’s priority was the restoration of security and the rule of law. The Interim Iraqi Government in Fallujah now had six objectives, as they had outlined yesterday:

3. To return rule-of-law to Falluja, and appoint new civilian authorities, including police;

Each of those objectives were objectives we were entirely comfortable with. Asked if the Prime Minister recognized that the incident might be as damaging to the coalition as the Abu Ghraib incident the PMOS said that the Americans had made it clear that they fully recognized that any breach of the usual guidelines by which armies operated was not only to be deplored but also was entirely damaging. We agreed with that analysis but it was for the Americans to investigate that incident.

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The main objective achieved here was:

7. To ensure that the people of Falluja hate and despise British and American forces for the next two generations at least.

Hundreds of insurgents/resistance fighters/whatever were killed, plus some US marines. The city was destroyed and an unknown number of civilians died in the process. Hundreds more insurgents will now take the place of the fighters killed by US forces, whilst the rets have escaped to fight elsewhere.

There is no point to this cycle of violence that the US/UK forces initiated in Iraq. None at all.

As for the Iraqi Ministry of Health reports, I somehow doubt that they are objective given that the Iraqi "government" consists of US appointees who depend on the occupation for their survival.
Comment by Lee Bryant — 17 Nov 2004 on 5:45 pm | Link
Await the outcome of the investigation ? It seems pretty cut and dried to me……as all the news reports from embedded journalists are censored by the army, it would seem like they wanted people to see this – and it backfired on them. there was another report a couple of days earlier that showed a marine shooting a cornered, wounded ‘insurgent’ being shot too, so this cant be an uncommon practice. Also the rerason that the hospital has ‘ample supplies’ is because the americans ‘captured’ it before the start of the offensive and any people trapped in Falluja couldnt get to it with the fighting going on. Then Allawi came on tv and said there were no civilian casulties….how does he know that or is everyone a ‘terrorist’ now ? The whole thing stinks of pure propaganda and trying to cover their own backs.
Comment by tony — 18 Nov 2004 on 12:52 am | Link
Can somebody tell me:

What’s the difference between Saddam Hussein leading an unelected government supported by the US and killing everyone who opposes him and Alawi leading an unelected government supported by the US and killing everyone who opposes him?

The only answer I can see is that one happened 20 years ago and one is happening today.
Comment by Uncarved Block — 19 Nov 2004 on 10:54 am | Link
On civilians having left, compare widespread <a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-1353856,00.html"> claims</a> before the attack that about 60,000 civilians were left. Obviously that could have been an overestimate, but I find it hard to believe there were *no* civilians in Fallujah, given that this contradicts everyone else’s reporting

On distributing food and water: this may be true, but one of the reasons that the US/Iraqi forces need to distribute water is that they probably <a href="http://www.casi.org.uk/briefing/041110denialofwater.pdf"> cut off</a> water supplies to Fallujah a couple of weeks ago.
Comment by Dan — 21 Nov 2004 on 9:15 am | Link
sorry, links in the above post didn’t come out. they were:
on numbers of remaining civilians: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-1353856,00.html
on denial of water: http://www.casi.org.uk/briefing/041110denialofwater.pdf
Comment by Dan — 21 Nov 2004 on 9:17 am | Link
I am writing an essay about blogging on the war in Iraq. You’re site has been of great use to my research and i would like to ask a few questions to further such.
Blogging has flooded the web since the war began and it is obvious that the people from Iraq no longer want occupation. Why then are their voices not being heard? We are becoming the terrorists, cold blooded killing such as in Fallujah can no longer be warrented. Troops should be pulled out and we should let the dust settle once and for all. The Iraqi poeple’s bloggs show that we are no longer helping, blogs have provided the democrative voicing of peoles opinion, why are you not hearing them?
Comment by Roisin Kiernan — 1 Dec 2004 on 4:14 pm | Link

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» Tuesday, November 16, 2004

Fallujah

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